


My Life Is On The Line (But Freedom Is Mine)

by DefaltManifesto



Series: And We Run [2]
Category: inFAMOUS (Video Games), inFAMOUS: Second Son
Genre: AU - See notes, Canon-Typical Violence, Cunnilingus, F/M, Face-Fucking, Face-Sitting, Fingerfucking, Kink Negotiation, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Riding, Rimming, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 07:16:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9425192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefaltManifesto/pseuds/DefaltManifesto
Summary: After Eugene unearths the first hints at a decade long conspiracy, the trio heads to the destroyed New Marais for answers - and for the key to unlocking more of Delsin's powers to save Lucy Kuo in time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So! For context:
> 
> I decided to take evil ending for Infamous 2 as a way to make sure Lucy Kuo stays alive (cuz I love her - and Nix but she dies in both endings so dammit). There's lot of talk regarding Infamous as well and a little bit with the comics. You don't need to have played the first infamous or read the comics to be able to follow the story though. I changed things a bit to make them fit together the way I wanted. 
> 
> I think I tagged everything but if you find something you think needs a tag let me know! 
> 
> Thanks as always to SublimeDiscordance and Nuanta for letting me talk endlessly about this fic, and to a dear friend for marathoning Second Son with me so I could talk to them endlessly about this fic too. 
> 
> Comments are loved! Title from Dangerous by Within Temptation.

[The tumblr](http://schizzar.tumblr.com)

 

Delsin’s fingers push lazily through Eugene’s hair, blunt nails scratching over his scalp as he does so. His attention is mostly absorbed in his phone as he reads over an article that’s been on every front page of every website since the night before.

           

_Lucy Kuo On Trial – Relocated to Washington D.C._

She’s the only one in Curdun Cay to go on trial, the rest released having done more than enough time for the various crimes they were all picked up for in the first place. There’s something about it that doesn’t sit right with him though. Of course, when the blast in Empire City and the destruction along the east coast had happened, followed by the fall of New Marais and a steady path of death along the southern coast, he had hated Lucy Kuo and Cole MacGrath just like everyone else. It was almost like some sort of patriotic duty – not that patriotism had ever been a real big thing for the Akomish. No, it was more an anger towards the Conduits who wanted to sacrifice everyone else for themselves. A loyalty to humanity, not a country – that’s what made him mad.

Now though, he’s not so sure about any of it. The government controlled media tore him and Fetch apart during their time in Seattle, painting them as mass murderers when Fetch had only gone after criminals and he had restrained almost every DUP officer he came across. Reading every news outlet painting Kuo as a sadistic woman, intent on destroying humanity makes him think maybe it’s the opposite of what they’re saying. He shuts off the screen to his phone and flings it to the end of the bed. The motion is enough to catch Eugene’s attention from his game.

"Something wrong?” Eugene asks.

Delsin straightens, the action prompting Eugene to shift his laptop to the side and turn to look at Delsin. “What do you know about Lucy Kuo?”

Eugene’s face gets the pinched look it always does when Delsin inadvertently makes him think of something he’d rather not acknowledge. “I know she’s the first person Augustine had me try to break.”

"But like-“

“Why do you want to know?” Eugene rarely sounds defensive but when Delsin looks him over, his body is just one long line of tension.

"Jeeze, we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”

Eugene deflates all at once, then pushes his glasses up enough to rub his eyes. “I’d really rather not. Kuo…” He shakes his head and then lets his hands fall in his lap again. “I don’t like to think about her.”

“Okay, what about just one question.”

“Fine.”

“Do you think the government and the media and everyone else is right about her? That she’s some sort of monster?”

Eugene takes a deep breath and lets it out in a rush as he looks down at his lap. “I think,” he starts, slow, like he’s picking his words with care. “That by the time Kuo got to me, she was what I would have become after one more year in Curdun Cay. And I don’t know if that person would be the one you ended up finding – the one that was fixable.”

Delsin nods. “Got it.”

Eugene doesn’t look back at him.

 

-.-

 

Eugene wakes up screaming that night and Delsin can’t help but feel a bit guilty because it’s been a week since the last time Eugene woke up that way and when he’d gone to bed, he’d looked haunted and anxious. Delsin stays where he is while Eugene stumbles into the bathroom to wipe off his face and let the cool water bring him back to reality. When Eugene comes back into the room, he leans up against the desk by his wall of computer monitors, folding his arms across his chest. Delsin can’t read his expression through the dark glasses and dim light of computer screens down the hall.

“When Augustine put Kuo in the training room, she used her as a way to hone my powers. I was given her file, pictures of everyone she’d ever known. She made me project images of every horrible thing I could imagine on those people in front of her and the whole time she just sat there and stared at the wall,” Eugene says. “I made her watch Cole kill her sister, made her watch herself kill her parents, everything. I used my angels, my demons, every single thing I could think of, and none of it even seemed to register.”

“Eugene-“

"By the end of it,” Eugene says, voice growing louder to drown out Delsin. “I was vomiting after every session from how hard I was working. It wasn’t enough so Augustine had me manifest the projections fully and start torturing her. She never made a sound. I don’t know where she went in her head not to feel what I was doing to her but it was far away. I was thirteen. So…I don’t like to think about Lucy Kuo.”

Delsin watches him walk away. He has a feeling that the last thing Eugene wants is a hug or any sort of comforting words.

 

-.-

 

Delsin goes back to the reservation for a few days, needing time to process what Eugene had told him and the fact that Eugene was still pissed at him for bringing it up. It was a little unfair – Delsin hadn’t known even bringing her up would trigger such a reaction. He doesn’t know how to apologize. Apologies had always been more of Reggie’s thing.

“I just don’t know what to say,” Delsin says, leaning his head back against the headstone of Reggie’s grave. “Like…I’m so out of my element with him, you know? I think I understand him and really, all I keep learning is that I don’t know anything about him at all, even after being in his head for a while. I get that he has secrets, I’m not saying he has to tell me everything but...this seemed big. And he didn’t tell me.”

“You know, talking to a dead man isn’t always the best way to get advice,” Fetch says.

Delsin jumps to his feet and turns around, eyes narrowing when he sees her sitting on the headstone of some woman he doesn’t know. “Why are you here?”

“Eugene’s acting all weird and you fucked off back home so I figured I’d come bother you,” Fetch says. “What’d you do?”

"Just…brought up some memories I didn’t mean to,” Delsin says. “All this stuff with Lucy Kuo in the news got me thinking and I asked him what he thought of her and I guess it triggered some bad memories for him.”

Fetch folds her arms across her chest. “Yeah, that’s the trouble with us. You never know when you’re going to step into a minefield. What’d you ask him?”

“I guess I just wanted to know if he knew anything about her,” Delsin says. “I mean, you saw how the media treated you and me and we weren’t really doing anything wrong. I’m wondering if maybe everything we were told was wrong too, you know? There was so much going on in the world between the plague and the Beast, it must’ve been easy to manipulate public perception.”

“Never interacted with her so you can’t pick my brain,” Fetch says. “You ask me though? She’s the reason so many people hate people like us, so honestly, I don’t give a fuck if she gets locked up forever.”

“It just…I want answers and we’re not going to get them in a trial,” Delsin says.

Fetch smirks. “What, no faith in the justice system Smokes?”

“Pretty much,” Delsin says.

“So what, you wanna go break her out or something?” Fetch asks.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Delsin says. “Especially not when even mentioning her ‘s got Eugene all messed up.”

“But if he was on board, that’s something you’d be interested in?” Fetch asks, tilting her head to the side.

“I don’t know,” Delsin says. “I just can’t get her out of my head.”

“She’s killed tons of innocent people Delsin,” Fetch says, her tone growing harder. “I know you got this whole savior complex thing going on but of all people, she isn’t some wounded damsel in distress for you to save.”

“That’s…” Delsin winces. “Okay, so that’s probably part of it.”

“Well if you do decide to something stupid, tell me first. I’ll go with you,” Fetch says.

“Thought you said you don’t care if she gets locked up?”

“Nah, but I care if you do,” Fetch says. “C’mon. I totally saw Betty making some sweet looking dish with salmon on my way in. I’m hungry.”

Delsin lets Fetch tug him away and tries to push thoughts of Kuo from his mind.

 

-.-

 

When Delsin walks into Eugene’s place back in Seattle, he’s not expecting to see Eugene asleep in front of his wall of monitors, drooling on a stack of papers as thick as a dictionary. His hood is pulled low down over his eyes. Delsin leans over him, eyes tracking over reach of the screens. Most of them show various DUP websites and files, but there’s news articles here and there too. Every screen has Kuo’s name on it somewhere.

“Fuck,” Delsin says under his breath. “Eugene?”

Eugene bolts upright the second Delsin’s hand grazes his shoulder. “Oh, hi, sorry. Didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“No, it’s cool,” Delsin says, trying to keep the unease out of his voice as he sits on the edge of the desk. “What’s all this?”

“I’ve just been thinking about what you said and I thought maybe you’re right,” Eugene says. “I mean, she might be a monster now, but anyone would be after Curdun Cay. So I’ve been digging through the DUP files and also I was looking into the news reports back eight years ago, you know, after the first blast in Empire City, the one that started the quarantine. Things just aren’t adding up right! There’s this-“

“Okay, slow down,” Delsin says. “This is a lot different from how you were acting a few days ago.”

“Yeah, but it’s like with my mom, you know? Face my demons. It’ll suck for awhile because thinking about all this shit hurts but if I can get the truth out about her? Even if she still goes to jail, at least people will know she’s being locked up for a lie,” Eugene says.

“Yeah but dude this is…” Delsin looks at the computer screens. “This kind of makes you look like a creepy stalker.”

“You’re the one that brought her up in the first place,” Eugene says, the excitement in his voice draining away to be replaced with anger.

“I know, I know,” Delsin says quickly. “I just…don’t want you pushing yourself too hard when you’re not ready.”

Eugene turns back to his computer. “You know, Fetch and I aren’t nearly as fragile as you seem to think we are.”

“I didn’t say that,” Delsin says. “I’m saying that you woke up screaming the other night because I brought Kuo up and I don’t want you to end up hurting yourself over some person who probably doesn’t give a shit about you.”

“I know my limits, Delsin,” Eugene says. “Better than you do.”

“Got it.” Delsin sighs. “I’m sorry.”

"Me too.” Eugene still doesn’t look at him. “I get that you care about me I just get frustrated being treated like I’m seconds from having a total mental collapse.”

“Yeah, I’d get pissed about that too,” Delsin says. “So…tell me more then? If you’re doing this, I want to help.”

Eugene rolls his chair back and then pats his leg. “Sit.”

“What?”

“We just fought and it makes me feel gross so I want to cuddle you now. Sit,” Eugene says.

The words chase away the ugly feeling growing in Delsin’s chest and he arranges his long limbs as best he can as he sits down in Eugene’s lap. The chair is big enough to fit both of them easily with its wide seat and high back. Eugene wraps an arm around his middle and rolls the chair forward again.

"So back in Empire City, there were reports of the first Conduits, three of which were at one point members of a group called the First Sons who developed the Ray Field technology that activated Conduits. Two of them, Kessler and Alden Tate, were supposedly killed by Cole MacGrath. The third, Sasha, went missing some time after Cole seized control of the Neon District. There’s a report from John White, an NSA agent in contact with Cole, mentioning a woman named Moya.” As he talks, Eugene draws up various files from the DUP’s servers, one for Alden, Kessler, Cole, Sasha, and the First Sons. “But there’s nothing on Moya except this.” He clicks again, opening a blank file with the name Moya Jones at the top.

“Okay, I’m following, I think,” Delsin says.

“Well, I looked up Moya Jones. Apparently, she used to be a high-ranking agent in DARPA,” Eugene says, clicking to another monitor and pulling up a news article. “After the Empire Event, DARPA invaded Empire City and killed the surviving citizens, which is why Navarro got impeached. Moya is said to be MIA as a result of this invasion. Soon after, DARPA was officially disbanded.” He moves back to the DUP’s screen to pull up Moya’s file. “That was seven years ago. This file on Moya was created two months before Hank, Fetch, and I escaped.”

"So why was the DUP opening a file on a woman who died seven years ago?” Delsin asks.

Eugene’s face lights up. “Exactly! So I hacked into DARPA-“

“Wait, what?”

“They couldn’t track me if they tried,” Eugene says. “I went back into their files on the First Sons. It turns out they were funding them the whole time, at least since the Cold War. Their research was originally about mind control and higher mental powers which is why DARPA was so interested in them. But, about a year before the blast in Empire City, Kessler usurped Richard and Alden Tate and took control of the group, pouring all of their resources instead into Ray Field technology, which up until then hadn’t even been heard of. He cut off ties with DARPA completely and sent Moya in to regain control of Empire City by working with Cole.”

“Oh my God, hold on,” Delsin says, scrambling off Eugene’s lap. “This is a lot.”

“Yeah I know, I’ve barely slept the last few days,” Eugene says with a nervous grin.

“I mean, no one knows any of this,” Delsin says.

“And they won’t,” Eugene says. “Because it’s redacted in all the evidence submitted to the court dealing with Lucy Kuo’s case. I looked into that too.”

"Which you haven’t even said how this connects to her anyways,” Delsin says.

“I’m getting there,” Eugene says. “So Moya goes to Empire City and works with Cole in some capacity – I haven’t been able to find any record on their correspondence with each other so I don’t know if it’s just kept in a paper copy or was lost or what. But, I did find that one of the last programs DARPA was working on was a chip implant to control Conduits. With what was happening in Empire City, and Sasha and Alden and Kessler all going on murderous rampages and shit, their prime goal became to use what research they had from the First Sons to figure out how to control Conduits.”

"Okay…”

“Sasha went missing, but Alden Tate’s body was found washed up on the coast of North Carolina,” Eugene says, clicking back over to the DUP’s file on Alden Tate. “The autopsy revealed a strange metal chip in his head – one the DUP couldn’t figure out the purpose of.”

“So that makes you think one of these implants is in Kuo?” Delsin shakes his head. “I’m following your logic but there’s some gaps.”

“I-I’m not actually done. There’s more,” Eugene says. “The DUP had jurisdiction over the remainder of DARPA’s open projects, which included all of the projects the First Sons were working on. Joseph Bertrand continued one of those projects down in New Marais – the technology to take a Conduit’s powers and fuse them into non-Conduits.”

“Like with Augustine,” Delsin says.

Eugene nods. “They used a combination of DARPA’s work as well as Bertrand’s. His experiments failed though, the minds of the fake Conduits deteriorating too fast to be of use.”

“I don’t see how this relates to Kuo having a chip in her head,” Delsin says.

"It’s proof that the DUP picked up where DARPA and the First Sons left off,” Eugene says. “So it’s not that far of a stretch to believe they used this chip on Kuo because how else does she stay fucking silent when you’re ripping open her fucking skin?”

Delsin stares at Eugene. He gets his logic a bit better now, and to be honest it does make sense and isn’t outside the realm of shady possibilities. But still, he wonders if maybe it’s just a way to convince himself that what he did to Kuo was okay. That maybe she didn’t feel it if she had a chip in her head. He’s not sure how to say that though, at least not in a way that doesn’t come off as patronizing.

“And what if you’re wrong?”

“Then I’m wrong. But if I’m not…” Eugene shrugs. “The military has all of the DUP’s info now. You think they’re going to play nice with that technology?”

“Okay, point taken. So what exactly is your plan here? You said get the truth out but we can’t confirm anything unless Kuo talks, which if she has a chip in her head is pretty damn impossible,” Delsin says.

“I think I have a plan for that,” Eugene says. “You know how I wasn’t sure why the DUP servers were still online when it left them so vulnerable to attacks? I mean, the only reason I have an easy time of it is because I’m trained to, but it’s still relatively secure. It’s just dumb to leave that much sensitive data in a place it can be accessed.”

“Yeah, I remember you mentioning it.”

"What if the program that controls the chip is on there, one the military hasn’t figured out how to move without disrupting the connection somehow?” Eugene turns back to the screens. “I know this system better than anyone – if there’s a hidden program there, I’ll find it. I can cut the link between the program and Kuo. It’s just going to take time I don’t have.”

“Why are you so concerned about getting it done quickly?” Delsin asks.

“Because for all of Augustine’s fucked up flaws, she thought she was protecting Conduits. The military has no interest in doing that – in fact it’d be better for them if Kuo totally flew off the handle and do some damage,” Eugene says. “And if the military can get everyone scared again, it doesn’t matter what you did in Seattle. You’ll just be another Cole to them, to everyone else.”

“So okay, our rough game plan here is to get Kuo’s chip turned off and help her tell the truth at her trial? What if she can’t? What if she’s all fucked up after everything she’s been through?” Delsin asks.

"That’s why I was thinking maybe we could…kidnap her,” Eugene says. “Get the chip turned off and go from there.”

Delsin groans. “This is such a horrible idea, you realize that right?”

“Yeah but it might be our only shot at saving Kuo and getting the truth out before the military and government use her to take control again,” Eugene says. “You’re with me, right?”

"Of course I am.” Delsin smiles despite his nerves. “Besides if anyone has good luck with horrible ideas, it’s me.”

 

-.-

 

Fetch is not on board.

“What happened to your whole ‘I want to live a normal life’ thing?” she asks, pacing around her kitchen floor while Delsin and Eugene watch her from where they’re sitting at the table.

“Hard to live a normal life when the military has the tech to control Conduits,” Eugene says.

“ _Potentially_ has the tech,” she says. “Are you sure about all this? This isn’t just something you need to do to feel useful or try to redeem yourself or something, right?”

Delsin’s happy she said it so he doesn’t have to later. Eugene doesn’t get angry with her the way he does with Delsin, because Fetch is different. Fetch understands him on a level that Delsin always try to but just can’t, and it means that most of the time she gets away with being a little harder on Eugene than Delsin would doing the same thing.

"Honestly, it was at first,” Eugene says with a shrug. “But then when I actually started digging, it became pretty obvious what kind of threat we’re going to be dealing with unless we get ahead of it.”

“There’s just no guarantee saving this woman is going to do any good,” Fetch says. “And like I told D, I don’t even like her. I got along with the DUP coming after me my whole life, and there isn’t anything the military could do to me that I haven’t already dealt with. But…I love you both, so I’ll help. I’m just throwing it out there that I think this is all a terrible idea.”

“Fair enough,” Delsin says. “So how are we going to do this? She’s going to be heavily guarded and we can’t guarantee that she’ll be able to make the decision to come with us.”

"Well, you and I can literally move at the speed of light,” Fetch says. “Why can’t we just dash in, grab her, and get out before anyone can think to stop us?”

“Because that’s way too noticeable,” Eugene says. “You and Delsin have your faces and pictures of you guys using your powers all over the Internet. You’ll bring the whole world right down on our heads.”

“So…stealthier,” Delsin says, giving Eugene a pointed look.

Eugene rolls his eyes. “Yes, stealth is good.”

“We need a better team then, no offense,” Delsin says.

“None taken, because I agree,” Fetch says. “Pretty much nothing we did in Seattle took any amount of stealth.”

“I don’t see why we can’t do this on our own,” Eugene says. “We took down Augustine and the DUP all on our own.”

“This is different,” Delsin says. “This is kidnapping the country’s most watched and hated criminal from right out under their noses without anyone realizing it was us.”

Fetch and Eugene are both silent after that. Delsin wants to help and with everything Eugene’s dug up and he’d rather make sure Conduits stay free of government interference, but he’s also listened to enough punk music to know that no matter how many times they get the truth out, the government will always come back with some other new plan. His whole life he’s been a small town delinquent shaking his fist at the sky. Seattle had been the first time his fist shaking had done any good, and that had admittedly felt great. But he also lost his brother in the process. He’s happier now and he doesn’t know if he’s prepared to risk Eugene and Fetch just to do it again.

“Wait, I have an idea,” Fetch says. “How well known is it that you have concrete powers?”

“Not very,” Delsin says. “Augustine never told anyone and I haven’t really used them.”

“Everyone knows that she wants to show the need for the DUP no matter what it takes, and it’s all over the news how loyal the members of the DUP were to her,” Fetch says. “So if someone broke Kuo out using a concrete power that only Augustine and her minions have, that’s who they’d blame. The only person the military and country hate more than Lucy Kuo right now is Augustine.”

“That’s…really a good idea,” Eugene says.

“Except for the part where concrete is my newest power,” Delsin says. “I’ve barely powered it up.”

“We can work with that though,” Eugene says. “Fetch and I can cause some sort of distraction, then you can go in and-“

“No, dumb idea,” Fetch says. “We do that and it defeats the whole purpose of using the concrete power. What about your stronger powers, like the big blasts you used to take out those huge units of DUP officers?”

“I never powered up my concrete power like that,” Delsin says. “I’d need more blast cores and who knows where we’ll find those.”

“I…do. Actually,” Eugene says. “There should be a ton of them still in New Marais, or really any city Cole hit because they’re generated by blasts of Ray Field Energy. It’s in the reports done by Kuo back when she was an agent. Apparently Cole’s powers got broken somehow back in Empire City, so when he got to New Marais he had to power up the way you did.”

“We don’t have time to go there and get Kuo, do we?” Delsin asks.

“Court date is two weeks out. It’ll take about two days to get there,” Eugene says. “Which gives us time to find the blast cores and get to DC to grab her on her way to court.”

“Yeah, I’m not big on this whole ‘enter areas with huge radiation that people can’t live in’ idea,” Fetch says.

Eugene shakes his head. “Conduits aren’t harmed by Ray Field Radiation the way normal people are. That was what caused the plague in the first place, though they have a vaccine for that now anyways so it wouldn’t be a big deal even if we were human.”

"So New Marais then,” Delsin says with a sigh. “We’re not taking my uncle’s car. We’ll have to hotwire something.”

“We’re doing this?” Fetch asks, glancing between them.

“I don’t see why not,” Delsin says. “Honestly, Eugene’s right even though the last thing I want to do is go out and risk all of our lives again. But I don’t really like the idea of waiting and letting the military hunt us down and put chips in our heads either.”

“Alright,” Fetch says. “But you’re driving.”

 

-.-

 

Delsin spends their last night in Washington at Betty’s home helping her make dinner. Alongside trying to learn the Akomish language, with mixed success, since Reggie died he’d taken more interest in learning anything he could from Betty whether it had to do with their heritage or not. Losing Reggie had just driven home the point that he could lose anyone at any time. When they’d lost their parents, he’d still been pretty young. That pain feels more like a distant memory and in his teenage years it’d been easy to take Reggie and Betty for granted. Now…that pain was still at the forefront of his mind.

"So what harebrained thing are you planning?” Betty asks as they sit down at their table with their fish and rice.

Delsin pauses, fork halfway to his mouth. “What?”

Betty gives him her usual look that commands him to stop bullshitting her. “You’ve got this sad look in your eyes. You usually made that look right after you did something stupid. You’ve matured quite a bit since then so I have a feeling this time it has something more to do with what you’re planning on doing. So what is it?”

“I…” Delsin pushes the plate back and sets the fork aside, staring down at the table. “I’m going to New Marais with Eugene and Fetch.”

“Now, why on Earth would you do that?” she asks.

"I’m planning to do something illegal and I don’t want to tell you what it is because I don’t want anyone coming back and hurting you,” Delsin says. “I want you to be able to say you don’t know when they ask. I’m tired of my choices getting the people I love hurt, okay?”

Betty’s lips thin into a harsh line. “Delsin Rowe, you tell me right now what you’re planning on doing. You can make your choices but I get to make mine too and I will not let my family keep risking their lives without being honest with me, so what are you doing?”

Delsin shakes his head. “I’m sorry Betty. I can’t.”

“So what? You’ll just be so terrified of someone else dying the way Reggie did that you never lean on any of your family or tribe again?” she asks.

The words sting even if they were true. He lies to himself most of the time, saying that he’s over Reggie’s death even though he knows that he isn’t. Half the reason he doesn’t want to rescue Kuo is to protect Eugene and Fetch, although having a plan where he’s going to be the one in the line of fire helped with some of that anxiety. But still, Betty wasn’t a Conduit. She couldn’t survive the things Reggie had died from but Eugene and Fetch had managed to walk away from.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “Please just…can we eat?”

Betty gives him a harsh look but it softens almost a moment later. “Okay Delsin.”

When he leaves, he hugs her tight.

 

-.-

 

Fetch steals an older van for them to drive.

“Cops don’t pull over minivans as often. They fear the wrath of soccer moms,” she says in way of explanation.            

They drive all the rest of the day and most of the night and end up somewhere in Nebraska, at least that’s where Delsin thinks they are. It’s some run down hotel just off the highway, but it’s clean enough that none of them mind bunking there for the night if it means they can get off the god damn road for a bit.

“Does the concrete here feel different?” Eugene asks while Fetch is in the shower.

They’re sitting on opposite full-sized beds, both stretched out and enjoying the leg room.

"Not really,” Delsin says. “Not like smoke from a stack versus smoke from a campfire, you know? Or like you and your infomercials versus you watching action movies. It’s just…concrete. I don’t know how to describe it really, it’s like it’s all the same I guess, the feel of it as we drive. But maybe I’m just not as in touch with it yet, who knows.”

Eugene pulls himself out of the bed and flops on the other one next to Delsin. He hesitates a moment before curling into Delsin’s side, glasses shoved askew as he presses his face into Delsin’s neck. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Delsin asks, hand rubbing up and down Eugene’s back.

"For being so pushy about this. I know you don’t really want to go. You’re not…enthusiastic about it the way you were when we were fighting Augustine,” Eugene says.

“It’s just different now,” Delsin says, chest tightening.

“How?”

Delsin takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, trying to find the right words. “Because before Augustine…before Reggie, I didn’t really think I could lose anyone I loved, even though people were shooting at me every day and I kept almost dying. But now, I know it just takes a bit of bad luck to lose you or Fetch and I…I can’t deal with that happening again. It scares the shit out of me. But you don’t have to apologize for pushing me. I know this is the right thing to do, I just want to be selfish.”

"I guess it’d be easier if I was still afraid to go outside, huh?” Eugene asks with a soft laugh.

Delsin echoes it and then squeezes the back of Eugene’s neck. “For my sanity yes, but not for you.”

Eugene shifts again, slinging a leg over Delsin’s hips and then leaning down to press their lips together. The tension leaves Delsin’s body on an exhale and he lets Eugene take control. Eugene’s come more and more into his body, confidence radiating out from him more often than not these days, and when it happens in bed it makes Delsin’s brain go all fuzzy. With a gentle hand, Eugene pushes Delsin’s beanie off so he can twist his fingers in his hair. The pressure makes Delsin’s whole body spark, but it’s interrupted when the bathroom door opens and Fetch walks out.

“I swear, I leave you two alone for five minutes,” she says as she digs through her bag for her gym shorts and tank top.

“Like you would resist in my position,” Eugene says, sitting back up.

Delsin wants to pull him back down, wants something to ground him, but he also knows sex with Fetch around generally makes Eugene uncomfortable so instead he keeps his hands on the bed. Eugene glances at Fetch and then slides off of Delsin. He presses a kiss to Fetch’s cheek before grabbing his backpack and disappearing into the bathroom. Fetch gives him a pointed look as she finishes tugging her tank top on.

“You look sulky,” she says.

“Yeah, because my dick is halfway hard and now Eugene’s in the shower.”

“I can do something about that,” she says, hopping up onto the bed next to him. “Eugene takes forever in the shower.”

She tugs her shorts back down and then climbs up onto the bed before going for the zipper and button on Delsin’s jeans. The fuzzy feeling in his brain returns and he sinks into it gratefully as Fetch sinks down onto his cock as soon as she’s stroked him to full hardness. Her hands shove hard down onto his shoulder as she rides him, drops of water falling onto his shirt from her hair that isn’t quite dry yet. He doesn’t do any of the work, letting her rub at her clit when she feels the need to.

She’s chased down two her own orgasms before she seems to notice Delsin hasn’t come yet, but his breathing has grown faster, cheeks red and heart racing.

“You know you can come right?” she asks with a teasing tone in her voice.

Apparently that’s what he needs to hear because he’s hurtling over the edge a moment later. Afterwards, he feels entirely drained, but in a good way. It’s like all the nervous energy in him has been burned away, but more so than just a good orgasm. He’s not sure how to describe it, even to himself.

“You alright there, D?” Fetch asks as she climbs off him.

“Mmm…” He rolls onto his side, fingers fumbling as he shoves himself back into his pants.

When he looks at Fetch, she looks concerned. It’s not worrisome enough to pull him out of his haze, even when she pulls her shorts back on and knocks on the bathroom door before letting herself in. The shower stops and he can hear some mumbled discussion between them before they both return to the room, Eugene shrugging into one of his hoodies as he towels his hair dry at the same time.

“Del?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

"Nothing? Feel good,” Delsin says. Their concern is making him feel a bit worried though.

Eugene looks back at Fetch and shrugs before going back to his bag and pulling out his laptop. He makes a frustrated noise about the shitty Wi-Fi before letting his hand dissolve into pixels and disappear inside the screen. When he pulls his hand out a moment later, he looks relieved.

“I guess it’s called sub-space? Something to do with kinky sex,” Eugene says.

Fetch tilts her head to the side. “We didn’t do anything kinky though.”

Eugene shrugs. “He’s always liked it when I was in control, I guess it’s like that but more? I’ll take care of him now.”

Delsin likes the sound of that. Eugene tugs him into the bathroom and strips them both down before helping him into the shower. The water rotates between warm and cold every twenty seconds or so but Delsin doesn’t mind when he’s got Eugene’s hands on him, wiping him down, his motions occasionally broken up when Delsin steals a kiss. When they get out of the shower, the hazy feeling begins to recede and by the time Delsin’s gotten into sweats, it’s gone entirely.

“Sorry,” Delsin says. “That’s…never happened before.”

“It’s fine,” Eugene says, pushing onto his tip toes so he can finish drying Delsin’s hair off. “Fetch and I just didn’t know what it was, that’s not your fault. I just never really thought you would’ve been into kinky stuff.”

“I’m not really,” Delsin says. “I mean, I watched a lot of porn through puberty, if I was kinky I think I would know by now. I just…like it when other people are in control. Apparently more than I thought.”

Eugene stays up on his tiptoes and presses his lips to Delsin’s. “I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

Delsin bumps his forehead to Eugene’s, a slow easy smile stretching out on his lips. “Cool.”

“You alright?” Fetch asks as she knocks on the bathroom door.

Delsin moves passed Eugene and opens the door. Fetch still looks worried with the creased lines in her forehead, so Delsin presses his thumb between her eyebrows and rubs.

“I’m fine,” he says.

She swipes at his hand but smiles. “Good. I mean my pussy’s been known to break men before but-“

“And this conversation is done!” Eugene says, voice reaching a squeak.

Fetch just laughs.

 

-.-

 

Thirty miles out from New Marais, the highway takes a sharp northern turn but the remnants of the old high way leading into the city can still be seen across the swampy marsh. They take the next exit and abandon the car in a Walmart parking lot before beginning their trek into the city. Delsin’s used to the wilderness, more so than Eugene and Fetch at least. Still, it doesn’t mean he particularly likes stomping his way through the muddy ground that occasionally dipped into water up to his shin.

They follow the path of the highway in. Given that the cities Cole had managed to decimate in his quest to create Conduits before the plague killed them had all ended up being quarantined and all citizens banned, there’s no hope for Wi-Fi or electricity, which means all of them saving their phone batteries for emergencies instead of directions. By the time the sun is starting to set, they’ve reached the outer edges, of the city, passing run-down hovels made of rotting wood.

It’s not until just before the rest of the sunlight leaves that they come across a place that doesn’t look like it’s going to crash down around them. It’s made of wood too but the land it sits on is solid and there’s no sign of rot that Delsin can make out. When they open the door, Fetch summons a ball of neon light and lets it float into the single room. There’s a tub in the far corner of the room and a rocking chair in the other, and the smell of chemicals is so strong it makes Delsin gag a bit.

“Still think this a good idea?” Delsin asks, looking over his shoulder at Eugene.

“I’ve slept in worse. Not much though,” Eugene says.

They pull out their bed rolls and try to ignore the sound of scampering animal feet.

 

-.-

 

The next morning, they finally make it into town, though they have to use Eugene’s angels to fly them across a large expanse of water. With nowhere to recharge though, it takes a lot out of him and their pace slows as they make their way through the ruins of New Marais.

“Anyone else feel that?” Fetch asks as they make their way along the coastal line along a road turned to patchwork by the weeds and rubble.

“That weird tingling?” Delsin asks.

“It’s gotta be the Ray Field Radiation,” Eugene says, flipping through his notebook. “This was the place John White transferred his power to Cole after all. The whole city is probably bathed in it.”

Delsin wiggles his fingers and bounces on his toes as they walk, the radiation making him feel unsettled as he does so. It feels like it’s flowing through him. “It’s like I’m absorbing it but immediately releasing it again.”

"Well, the blast cores are what make it stay in you,” Eugene says. “Something about the way they’re made up makes it possible to absorb and keep the energy, but this is just unfiltered radiation that’s been stewing on its own for years. It’s probably not something we can use.”

The silence of the city doesn’t make the uneasy feeling any better. It’s mostly intact as far as Delsin can see. It’s clear it hasn’t been inhabited, parts of the road washed away by the ocean here and there, as well as the occasional side of a building completely blown out, but there’s still merchandise in shop windows. It’s not until they start making their way to the middle of the city that the devastation becomes clearer. In the central plaza, giant footsteps the length of buildings are sunk deep into the concrete.

Fetch sits down on a rusty park bench beneath a large building with a boat like structure on top. The sign above the doorway is faded, leaving it unidentified. Eugene joins her, both of them seeming stunned as they look around the mishmash of destruction and perfectly intact buildings. Delsin makes a slow, jogging lap around the plaza, peeking into the windows of the various bars and shops before finally pausing at the flutter of a piece of fabric on top of one of the rooftops.

He hops onto the window ledge of the first floor of the building, pulling himself onto the second and then the third until finally he hauls himself onto the roof. There’s a couch there, and on the brick of the small structure containing the staircase is what would’ve been a neon sign spelling out ‘sexy’. It looks…homey. There’s a tent off to the side as well, one of the sides torn off which was flapping in the wind.

Delsin walks around, gaze falling on a metal shelf bolted to the brick siding of the staircase. It’s full of round paint cans, stripped of their outer layer so there’s no label, just dull metal. He grabs one at random and pops it open to find that it’s full of bullets. The next is empty, and the one after that has a folded up piece of paper. When he opens it up, he’s not sure what he’s expecting, but what he sees isn’t very helpful. It’s just a crudely drawn map of the city, dotted with blue spots here and there.

He gives a defeated sigh and shoves the paper in his pocket and leaps off the roof before jogging over to Eugene and Fetch. Before he can speak, Fetch motions at him to keep his mouth shut and then points behind him. Frowning, he turns. There, on one of the power lines, sits a pigeon. It clearly isn’t real because every time it turns its head, there’s a mechanical whirring sound that’s easily heard in the silence of the city.

"What is it?” Delsin asks, voice soft.

Eugene shrugs.

Delsin turns back towards it, then lifts his hand and fires off a shot of smoke to envelop it. It drops to the ground immediately and the three of them run over to it. The smoke fades, revealing a metal pigeon with a blinking red light at its neck. Eugene grabs it and twists, the head popping off with a groan of metal and revealing a USB jammed inside a nest of wires.

“Okay…” Eugene says. “This is…weird.”

“If it helps, I also found this,” Delsin says, shoving the paper he found into Eugene’s other hand. “It was on that rooftop over there. Looked like someone was living there once.”

“I’ll start with this,” Eugene says, waving the USB a little and then taking a seat on the ground and pulling out his laptop. He passes the map to Fetch. “You guys worry about that.”

Fetch opens it and the spins in a quick circle trying to orient herself. “Alright, I think the nearest dot is that way. C’mon Smokes.”

They set off back towards the coast at a jog. They have to stop and backtrack here and there as they try and follow the crude directions but it isn’t long before they find themselves standing in front of a beat up transformer that hisses and smokes.

“So maybe there is still electricity in this town,” Delsin says. “It’s just a massive fire hazard to use it.”

“Where’d you say you found this? That roof you were on right?” Fetch asks.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe that’s where Cole and Zeke had their home base,” Fetch says.

“Cole and who?”

Fetch folds the paper up and puts it in her pocket. “I spent some of the time you were driving reading everything Eugene compiled on what happened here. Zeke was Cole’s best friend and apparently was the go-to guy when it came to bringing power to areas that didn’t have it so Cole could go there. Apparently he didn’t function well without electricity around.”

“So then all those dots are transformers?” Delsin asks.

“I think so,” she says. “But I wonder why they still have energy? Can you try and absorb it?”

"Electricity isn’t in my arsenal,” Delsin says.

Fetch smacks his shoulder. “It’s smoking though, isn’t it?”

“Oh, right.”

Delsin reaches out and calls the smoke into him. It stings as it enters him, a strange acidic taste filling his mouth as he does so, almost like what he would imagine battery acid tasting like. His skin crawls and then all the sudden he’s on his knees vomiting as the energy rushes through him as if trying to claw its way back out. The next moment, his vision blurs and then it’s like when he was absorbing Fetch and Eugene’s powers, images flashing across his brain in a fast rewind. He can’t grasp onto any one image or any single feeling long enough to process it, and then, quick as it came, the feeling is gone.

“Delsin? Delsin!”

He coughs and rolls onto his side, spitting out the sour taste in his mouth before pushing himself back onto his feet. The toxic feeling that absorbing the smoke had given him is gone, but in its place is a shakiness and a fear that they were definitely way in over their heads. Fetch’s hands tighten on his shoulders, shaking him.

“Delsin! What happened?” she asks.

“Just…I don’t know.” He shakes his head. The words are difficult to form, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth. “Hold on.” He stretches his hand and fires off a shot of smoke, relief filling him that he hadn’t accidentally absorbed something and gotten rid of his powers in the process. “I think that was some of Cole’s memories. Or something.”

“In the transformer?”

“I don’t know what else it could’ve been. I saw Kuo, some other woman, and this weird…monster.” Delsin shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

"Well no more absorbing smoke from transformers,” she says.

“It was your idea,” Delsin says.

She glares him into silence and then grabs his arm to start tugging him back towards Eugene. When they get back, Eugene is still where they left him, tapping away at his keyboard with single minded focus so that even when they sit down on either side of him, he doesn’t even glance up.

“Any luck on your end?” she asks.

“Almost,” he says. “It’s some sort of encrypted audio file, like the one that DUP guy left Delsin.”

He stops and hits enter. There’s a crackle from the speakers and then a voice.

“This is Agent…well, I guess I’m not an Agent anymore, especially now. My name is Lucy Kuo. I wanted to leave something here, in case we don’t accomplish what we set out to do. I know better than anyone else how the government likes to spin its lies to make the public believe what it wants it too. I spent a lot of my life setting those lies up in the first place. I don’t doubt that if Cole and I fail, they’ll try and make it seem like we were monsters, but we weren’t…aren’t. We are making the only choice we can given the hand we were dealt.

“Encrypted on this file are the locations of my four other dead drops. I would have left more but, Cole wants to leave tomorrow so there’s only what I could make and hide in that time. I…I don’t regret what we have done, but I know that any decision that results in this many casualties isn’t really a good one. It’s not the decision I would have made if I were able to think clearly but when you get turned into a Conduit one day, have your powers drained and copied to others the next, and are faced with a life or death decision after that, it’s hard to think clearly I suppose.

“By now, it is probably known that Cole has turned into The Beast, something Kessler knew was coming and tried to prepare Cole and the First Sons for. But it’s not as simple as wanting to kill all humans or something ridiculous like that. I was human a little over a week ago. We were given the power by John White to turn people into Conduits using Ray Field Radiation that Cole can generate himself by turning into the Beast, but this power requires the sacrifice of thousands of lives because if you aren’t a Conduit…you will die. But with the plague spreading like it is, killing potential Conduits and humans alike, we feel like we don’t have a choice. We have to turn as many as we can into Conduits before it’s too late. I just hope we succeed.”

There’s another crackle and then silence.

“So they murdered a ton of people because they were worried that everyone would die?” Fetch asks.

“Seems like a very Augustine approach to the problem,” Delsin says.

“People were dying so fast they couldn’t dig the graves in time,” Eugene says as he shuts his laptop. “I’m not exactly surprised that they felt like it was the only decision, even if they were wrong. I mean it took what, three years to develop a vaccine? They probably saved a lot of people in the process, because everyone who died would have died anyways, just a lot slower.”

Delsin frowns. “That doesn’t make it right.”

Eugene shoves his laptop into his bag and shrugs it back onto his shoulders. “Of course it doesn’t. I’m just saying it makes sense. So, I’ve got the locations of the other dead drops sent to my phone. What was the deal with the map?”

"They’re transformers,” Fetch says. “But Delsin absorbed some of the smoke coming off of it and shit got weird.”

“The transformers are still live,” Delsin says. “Maybe they absorbed some of Cole’s energy or something when they set off that blast, but when I absorbed the smoke coming from it I got like…some of his memories or something. No powers though, and honestly I can’t make much sense of the memories either.”

“Okay so we’ve got two leads then,” Eugene says. “Kuo’s dead drops and the transformers.”

“We should probably check the site of the transference of John White’s powers to Cole’s too,” Fetch says. “That’s where the highest concentration of Ray Field Radiation should be right?”

Eugene nods. “I’ll chase down the dead drops. You guys handle that.”

“Meet back here in three hours?” Delsin asks.

Both of the others nod.

 

-.-

 

The church is easy to find in that it’s nothing but a pile of rubble with a shattered clock face resting in front of it. The moment they enter the area, the air feels thicker and electrified, like one spark would set the whole place on fire or something equally horrific. Fetch rubs at her arms.

“I don’t like this,” she says.

“Me neither,” Delsin says. “I also don’t like the way Eugene was talking.”

“Why not?” she asks. “He kind of has a point. I’m pretty sure I’d do the same thing in their situation, even if it’s horrible. I’ve done lots of horrible shit to try and survive, and so has he.”

"Is this just one of those things I’m doomed to never understand?” Delsin asks, trying not to sound too irritated.

“Okay, look at it this way,” she says, grabbing his shoulder and making him face her. “You’re obviously a very self-sacrificing guy, I get that. But imagine you’re in a position where Reggie is going to die unless you sacrifice ten other people, just strangers, people who are going to die anyways just a few weeks later. What would you do?”

Delsin squirms and jerks away from her. “Save Reggie. Obviously.”

“So isn’t that what they were doing? Saving people the only way they knew how?”

“That can’t be the whole story,” Delsin says, shaking his head. “She’s obviously got a guilty conscious and is trying to rationalize why they made the choice they did, which means there was an alternative.”

Fetch sighs. “Let’s just look for blast cores.”

It doesn’t take them long to find some shards. They’re a different color than the ones in the drones in Seattle, a deeper shade of blue with flecks or orange and purple. He and Fetch take turns absorbing the ones they find as they climb through the wreckage, and luckily unlike the smoke from earlier, these don’t leave any funny feelings behind. It isn’t until they’re near the area near the front of the church that they feel something. It’s like the ground is humming beneath them and Delsin can feel the pull of the energy deeper down.

Fetch holds her hand out and blasts the rubble twice. The humming gets louder but they still can’t see anything so she blasts it a few more times, shattering the rubble as she does so. It takes a little bit longer but finally they’re rewarded with a long hunk of rock that glows a deep blue. Fetch grabs it and hands it over for Delsin to shove in his bag.

“Think there’s going to be any more around here?” Fetch asks.

“Kind of hard to tell with this thing vibrating in my bag,” Delsin says. “Let’s check out a few more of those transformers.”

"The last one made you throw up,” Fetch says.

“Yeah but maybe it’ll lead to more clues. C’mon.”

They trek halfway across the city, stopping here and there at transformers as they go. Each one is like the last, smoking and hissing with a dim glow of electricity flowing throughout it but every light they can see is out. Eventually they end up in front of Fort Phillipe.

"Well this looks like a safe place to stay the night,” Fetch says, wrenching open one of the iron gates.

They step into a courtyard littered with broken turrets and guns. Most of the windows are blown out, but when they peer inside it looks livable enough without a single sign of another living creature.

“Wonder if the cockroaches survived,” Fetch says.

"Not really what I want to be thinking about.”

On the top level, they enter a circular room which turns out to be an elaborate bedroom. Except for the dust, it seems miraculously well kept, the comforter lying without wrinkles and the big canopy blocking out the rays of the mid-day sun when they stretch out on it.

“It’s big enough to fit all three of us too,” Delsin says.

“Yeah…” She rolls on her side and kisses him once on the forehead before getting up again. “C’mon. If there’s going to be any hidden secrets or clues, it’s going to be in the basement. The clues are _always_ in the basement.”

The downstairs isn’t so much a basement as it is a cellar with a low roof, which isn’t surprising given how they’re on the coast. There’s a few metal boxes that look like cash drawers. Fetch breaks one of them open and pulls out several wads of hundreds and with a quick wink in Delsin’s direction, she pockets those in her bag before moving on to the next. This one has a manila file in it with enough pages to be too much trouble to go through kneeling in a dark cellar, so she hands those to Delsin to tuck away for later.

It takes quite some time to meander their way through the fortress and in the end they come up with nothing of interest. When they get back to the plaza, Eugene is already waiting for them, headphones plugged into his laptop as he types. Delsin sits down next to him and pulls the headphone jack out.

“-pictures of Bertrand turning these people into monsters. From there he fell quickly in popularity, which created a power vacuum that the rebels easily filled. While Laroche was far from someone I got along with, he did do a good job of uniting the city together in those final days before we discovered the truth about the Ray Field Inhibitor and what it meant for the rest of us.”

Kuo’s voice cuts out abruptly.

“The rest of it was just summarizing their conflict with Bertrand,” Eugene says, shutting his laptop. “There’s also some pdf files she saved that I downloaded, so I can look into those later to see if there’s anything useful. What about you guys?”

Fetch pats Delsin’s backpack. “Found us a blast core and some cash. Also some sort of file that looked kind of important but we didn’t look into it yet.”

“Did you use it yet?” Eugene asks. “The blast core I mean.”

“No, I figured we’d wait,” Delsin says. “After all, you know more about them.”

“I’m glad you did. The blast cores in New Marais are way less refined then what the DUP was using for their drones and Conduit tracking devices,” Eugene says. “According to Kuo’s files, Cole would be knocked unconscious for up to eight hours after draining one.”

“Jesus,” Delsin says, glancing over his shoulder. The humming feels more ominous now.

“We did find a cool place to bunk for the night. We should get some candles though,” Fetch says. “It’ll be pretty dark in there once the sun goes down.”

"How much battery does your laptop have?” Delsin asks.

"Enough,” Eugene says. “Hopefully we’ll just need the one blast core. Then tomorrow we can test it out and I can pick up the last dead drop and we can get out of this place.”

Delsin hopes they leave sooner rather than later. He has no real desire to linger any longer in a place soaked in Cole’s memories.

 

-.-

 

They pile on to the huge king-sized bed that night, windows flung wide open with the sticky heat making their clothes cling to their bodies. Fetch managed to find enough candles to light most of the room up. It’s almost romantic, and it would be if they had showered recently and weren’t using the bed of a fascist, racist dictator who tried to start a race war between Conduits and humans.

“This Bertrand sounds like a real dick,” Fetch says as Kuo’s dead drop comes to an end. “Like, count on the old, racist white guy to be so insecure about his powers that he decides that all Conduits need to die.”

Delsin snorts.

“We need that last dead drop,” Eugene says as he shuts his laptop. “Because this isn’t adding up.”

“What do you mean?” Delsin asks.

“Bertrand was trying to start a race war between Conduits and humans right? And Kuo, Nix, and Cole tried to stop him,” Eugene says. “But then somehow they end up making the choice to sacrifice humans for the sake of Conduits, kicking off what they were trying to avoid in the first place.”

“So maybe she’s not as innocent as you think,” Delsin says.

“Even if she’s not, we have to get the truth out,” Eugene says. “I just know we’re missing something.”

“So what about that blast core?” Fetch asks. “Should we light it up?”

Delsin glances at his bag in the corner of the room. “Might as well. Better to not waste any more time. You guys can carry me right?”

“We’ll manage,” Eugene says.

Delsin grabs the blast core and they head down to one of the courtyards. None of them are sure how big the energy field will be once he lights it up so it seems to be the safest place. He steps over to some of the nearby rubble, absorbing it to make sure the concrete power is settled deep inside him when he activates the core, and immediately his mouth is full of the taste of gunpowder and blood. His knees buckle as his stomach turns again. Fetch barely keeps him from landing on his face.

“What is it?” she asks.

“This whole fucking city is toxic,” Delsin says, eyes squeezed shut tight as he fights his stomach back down. “Even the concrete is bad. Just…blood and gun-powder and _fear_. Fuck…”

The blast core rolls out of his hand as he starts to shake and a second later Eugene is next to him on the ground, pulling him close as he starts to cry. The emotions keep welling up in him, uncontrollable. They feel foreign though, like some ghost is inhabiting him with its nightmares. The feelings are distinctly someone else’s, likely whoever ended up dying on the shattered concrete he absorbed.

“That’s the second time today he’s gotten someone’s emotions with what he’s absorbed,” Fetch says. “That can’t be normal.”

“Well, it’s not totally surprising,” Eugene says. Their voices sound far away to Delsin’s ears. He clings tighter to Eugene’s arm wrapped around his chest as he tries to control his breathing. “I mean think about it, we prefer certain sources over others because they feel better or taste better, and this place is soaked in Ray Field Radiation so that effect is probably even stronger. Think of how many people were fighting. The Rebels, the Militia…that’s a lot of fear and blood that’s been soaking into every inch of this place for years.”

“Fuck this shit.”

Fetch stands up and walks away, whether from anger or something else Delsin isn’t sure. All he can do is hold Eugene as close as he can as he rides it out. He’s not sure how much time passes before he feels like he’s breathing normally, but Fetch has returned and is sitting across from him on the pavement rolling the blast core back and forth on the ground.

“Sorry,” he croaks out, throat still tight.

“It’s not your fault D. It’s all the pieces of shit that couldn’t stop fighting for two fucking seconds,” she says, not looking at him.

Eugene presses a kiss to the back of his head. “You think you can do this? If that blast core is from ground zero, who knows what you’re going to feel.”

“I’ve got it,” Delsin says, swallowing the shaky and unsteady feeling in his chest. “Give it to me.”

Fetch hands it over and the three of them get to their feet. Honestly, the last thing Delsin wants to do is absorb whatever fucked up memories or feelings are trapped inside the humming hunk of stone in his hand. But he didn’t come this far for nothing. He just really hopes rescuing Lucy Kuo is fucking worth it.

He closes his eyes and braces himself and pulls the energy in.

 

-.-

 

_Dropped out of college and got a job as a bike courier-_

_A package found me-_

_Outside the city fell apart-_

_Civilization committing suicide-_

_-head on a platter, now they act like I’m one of the family-_

_Not sure if Zeke’s ever gonna forgive himself for this-_

_All my powers and I couldn’t do a thing-_

_He was responsible for all of it-_

_Dr. Wolfe had worked on the Ray Sphere prototype-_

_I had fought it with everything I had-_

_Now these redneck assholes strut up and down the street, eyeballing-_

_-crawling my way into the storm drain was a trial-_

_Kuo was easy to spot, Bertrand had bled her dry and-_

_Nix watched as her family was swallowed up in the blast-_

_Boxed product supermen for sale to any warlord with cash-_

_-out to save the world in some Grand Old Testament kind of way-_

_I could raise them up, creating new Conduits-_

_Humanity giving way to Conduits-_

_Now I stand at its center-_

-.-

 

Delsin wakes screaming. The scream dies quick enough, throat too raw to let it continue, and when he slumps forward, it’s into Fetch’s arms. His dull nails bite into her skin as he grits his teeth, breathing harsh and fast through his nose. Eventually, his brain slows down and remembers who he is. He can feel Cole’s emotions skittering around on the edges of his brain, poking and prying at his skull like they want to get out just as badly as Delsin wants them gone.

When he finally starts processing what’s around him, he realizes there’s day time light coming in he window. He looks around the room but there’s only Fetch on the bed next to him. He really wants Eugene.

“Hey,” Fetch says, rubbing his back. “Eugene is grabbing the last dead drop. You’ve been out for like, twelve hours.”

“Oh…” He coughs. “Why is it hard to talk?”

“You were screaming for almost two minutes straight when you first absorbed the blast core,” Fetch says. “It’s probably got something to do with that. We still have water though.”

She hands one of their water bottles to him and he takes a few slow drags of it. It’s warm but it’s also the best thing he’s ever tasted. He slumps into her afterwards, his mind feeling sluggish and slow.

“Feel like you got some new powers at least?” Fetch asks.

“I don’t know. Mostly I feel tired. I can feel Cole too, the way I felt you and Eugene after I got your powers,” Delsin says. When he digs into himself though, he can feel the concrete power and after a little concentration, he brings it to cover his hand. “But no electricity.”

“Well that’s a relief. I’d have to have you eat more of those things,” Fetch says. “So does it make any sense? What you can see in Cole’s head I mean.”

“Not really,” Delsin says. “It’s all jumbled up, more so than it was with you and Eugene. It’s like…I’m getting all the feelings without any of the facts or events to pin them too, if that makes sense.”

“Kinda. Never really understood your power in the first place though,” Fetch says.

Before Delsin can response, Fetch’s phone goes off. She flips it open and puts it on speaker.

“Hey! So I’m going to need your help probably. Head across the bridge near there and head to your left. You’ll probably see me and the thing I’m currently trying to get away from! Hurry!”

Eugene’s call ends before either of them can respond.

“You go, I’ll follow,” Delsin says.

“Should you even be fighting right now?” Fetch asks as they both scramble off the bed.

“Doesn’t matter. We can’t leave Eugene out there with limited power and no way to recharge, so _go_ ,” Delsin says.

Fetch is gone in a flash of pink. Her powers are limited too but he knows she’ll be smart. In the meantime, he has to move and hope his scattered brain can keep up with the rest of him. He hops out the window and runs along the balcony before hopping over that to the street below. His body screams out its protest through deep aches down to his bones. He grits his teeth and calls the concrete power up, coating his body in its protective shell before setting out at a run, pushing his legs even when they resist.

It’s not as fast as Fetch’s lightning fast dash but it gets the job done. He barrels through the cars scattered across the bridge, following the faint and fading pink light of Fetch’s path towards Eugene. When he gets to the other side of the bridge, he falls out of the concrete form and freezes. He’d dealt with Augustine’s monster like conduits before but they have nothing on what he sees stomping its way along the train tracks towards him.

It’s covered in jagged ice, a towering beast that tops the three-story buildings it’s striding past, thick tree trunk legs cracking the pavement with each step as it closes in on him. Eugene zips past him, yanking on Delsin’s arm. The beast opens its maw to reveal a row of fangs and a moment later, mucus covered balls of _something_ project out of its throat. Fetch crashes into them, shoving them out of the way just in time.

“Go back across the bridge!” Eugene screams.

They all start running at the same pace as Eugene whose video wings flicker before dying. It’s not going to be fast enough to outrun the thing, not with the stride of its legs, but Delsin is pretty sure if they can get over the place where the bridge splits in half he can do something to at least slow it down. At least he hopes he can. With the adrenaline coursing through him, he can feel the power start to swirl within him, stronger than anything else he’s felt while wielding Augustine’s concrete power.

He shoves Eugene and Fetch forward before coming to a halt.

“Go, go I got this!” Delsin shouts with a confidence he doesn’t feel.

Eugene starts to resist but Fetch grabs his arm and forces him to keep running. Delsin sucks in a ragged breath and turns around. The monster’s mouth opens again and it lets out a roar as it nears the halfway mark of the bridge, the metal groaning and shuddering with each step it takes. Delsin falls to his knees, fingers trailing over the concrete. It comes to him when he calls it, reacting faster than it ever had before. It still tastes of blood and fear, but Delsin doesn’t resist it like before or recoil, instead letting the emotion flow through him, amplifying his own emotions as the concrete begins to tear itself up from the bridge.

The concrete street beneath the monster lurches and then splinters, shrinking in on itself before rocketing upwards in a sharpened point, piercing the ice through the beast’s stomach and out the top of its head. Delsin raises his other arm, sending another spike through it from the opposite direction. When he brings his fists together, clenching them tight, the remaining concrete gives way, dropping the monster into the river below as it wails and writhes on the concrete spikes driven through it.

When it goes still in the water, Delsin falls to his knees and almost tumbles into the water after it. Fetch grabs the back of his hoodie and hauls him back at the last second. The next thing that hits him is the stench of the thing, a thick cloud of green gas rising out of the water as the thing starts to deteriorate where it lies, the smell enough to make his eyes water and his stomach roll.            

“So you got that new power then,” Fetch says as Eugene joins them.       

“Yeah, guess so,” Delsin says. He rests his head on Eugene’s shoulder. “Please tell me you got that stupid fucking dead drop.”

“Yeah, I got it,” Eugene says. “Thanks for saving my life and everything. Sorry I couldn’t you know, turn into an angel or something.”

“No, it’s fine,” Delsin says with a weak smile. “I just really want to go back to civilization now if you don’t mind.”

“Fucking amen to that,” Fetch says.

 

-.-

 

It’s almost sun down by the time they make it to the next town outside of New Marais, sweaty and in need of a shower. Given that the main hobby in the area seems to be alligator hunting though, they don’t really stand out while they wait for the credit card Fetch stole off some guy at the grocery store to clear in the hotel lobby. The woman hands over their keys without a second glance.

Fetch and Eugene both agree that Delsin deserves the first shower. He stumbles into it and almost collapses as soon as the hot water starts to flow over his skin, washing the grime and dust away. He’d been on autopilot the entire way out of the city, bits and pieces of Cole’s memories rising up before fading away too fast for him to get a grip on them and really take them apart to have them actually make sense. It puts him on edge. Cole is dead – everyone knows that.

Still, having a dead man’s memories floating around in his subconscious is eerie.

It’s Eugene that finally pulls him out of the shower. He’s shivering, shaking really, as Eugene starts to towel him off. When he looks at himself in the mirror, the fog starting to fade away, he’s paler than he’s ever seen. It’s like all the blood drained right out of him, leaving behind a face that looks like his but that he doesn’t even recognize no matter how hard he tries to concentrate.

"Hey,” Eugene says.

He looks at Eugene, but there’s nothing. He can’t feel a damn thing. Eugene looks worried behind his glasses too, which means he’s probably not doing all that great of a job at hiding it.

“Sorry,” he says. It feels right.

“No, you’re fine. You’re not okay though, are you?”

Delsin shakes his head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Eugene bites his lip. “It’s my fault. We never should’ve chosen New Marais to try and get a blast core from. There’s gotta be something wrong with it – corrupted. Who knows what went wrong?.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just from…Cole,” Delsin says.

“Is that why you feel so off?”

“Think so. He’s in my head. There’s a dead man in my head,” Delsin says with a nervous laugh. “What the fuck.”

“We never should’ve done this,” Eugene says.

The words bring forth the first flicker of emotion Delsin’s felt since he woke up. “Fuck you, I made my decision. We all decided to go to New Marais together and just because I’m a little fucked up now doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision, okay? Gotta get the truth out.”

“Then how do I help?” Eugene asks. “Because you’re not okay and I’m not gonna let you keep feeling that way.”

“Just…” Delsin turns and wraps his arms around Eugene’s waist, bowing his head enough to press it into Eugene’s neck. He just wants to be held, wants someone’s arms around him to hold him into his body so he doesn’t go floating away from himself.

He falls asleep that night, sandwiched tightly between Fetch and Eugene. It’s enough for now.

 

-.-

 

Delsin doesn’t wake up screaming, but he does wake up with tears on his face. He turns his face into the rough pillowcase to dry his cheeks and tries to make his heart rate calm back down. He’s not even sure why he’s sad, but there’s this crushing loneliness pressing in on his brain from all sides, like back when Reggie had first fallen into the water encased in his concrete tomb. But he’s not upset about Reggie. He doesn’t know _who_ he’s upset about.

A hand grabs his shoulder, tugging him to roll back onto his side again. A moment later, Eugene presses up along his back, lips leaving soft kisses along the nape of his neck as his arm wraps around Delsin’s side so his hand can rest against his chest. Fetch is sprawled on her stomach in front of him. From the rhythm of her breathing, she’s still asleep.

“Hey,” Eugene says, voice soft.

Delsin brings his hand up to where Eugene’s sits against his chest, pulling it away enough to twine his fingers with Eugene’s. Eugene squeezes his hand tight in response. The motion steadies Delsin more than he expects it to.

“Reggie?” Eugene asks.

"No,” Delsin says. “Just…Cole. He must’ve lost someone.”

"You don’t know?” Eugene asks.

“I was telling Fetch it’s more like I get all his feelings and none of the facts,” Delsin says. “They just come up at random and it’s like I’m another person almost, like I’m sad, but it’s not my grief.”

"How do I help?” Eugene asks for the second time that night.

Delsin turns on his side and presses his lips to Eugene’s in a desperate kiss. Eugene makes a noise of surprise before moving them so he’s stretched out on top Delsin, taking charge of the kiss before Delsin even has to ask. He twists one hand in Delsin’s hair and the other slips down to push under Delsin’s shirt to slide up and pinch one of his nipples between his blunt fingernails. The foreign feelings are overwhelmed in an instant by the sharp pain. He groans and rocks his hips up against Eugene’s, gasping into the kiss as he does so.

“Give a girl a heads up if you’re going to start fucking,” Fetch says.

Delsin wants to scream. He just wants Eugene to hold him down and fuck Cole’s feelings right out of him and he wouldn’t mind Fetch being there but he knows how uncomfortable Eugene gets when it comes to sex with Fetch being around.

“Either join in and help or go,” Eugene says.

“What?” Delsin and Fetch ask at the same time.

Even in the dark, Eugene’s flush is obvious. “Just…don’t touch me. But it’ll be better for him if we both work him over, right?”

“Probably,” Delsin says.

“Cool,” Eugene says.

He steals another kiss before moving off of Delsin and flicking on the dim lamplight. Delsin sits up to pull his shirt off but before he can work on getting his sweats off, Fetch presses him back down onto the bed with a deep kiss. He lifts his hips when he feels Eugene’s hands start tugging on the hem of his pants before going boneless as Fetch drags her nails down his sides, sharper than the sting that Eugene had left on his nipple. Eugene’s tongue over the head of his cock jerks away his attention the next moment.

Fetch bites his lip and then moves away from him to wiggle out of her shorts. “I’m going to ride your face.”

Delsin sucks in a tight breath, then whines when Eugene’s teeth graze of his balls. “Yes please…”

She grins and moves up to straddle his face before lowering herself down. He gets his hands on her thighs, gripping tight as he licks into her cunt with a desperate determination to make her feel good. It’s hard to focus though when every few seconds Eugene nips at his thighs or hips, and once gently along the shaft of his cock. The threat of pain makes it better, makes his brain race. There’s so much to focus on that the feelings at the back of his mind don’t even register.

When Eugene’s tongue licks, flat and broad over Delsin’s hole, Delsin’s head slams back on the pillow and he arches so abruptly that he nearly knocks Fetch off of him. That prompts her to twist her fingers in his hair and yank him back where she wants him. He moans as his lips slide over her clit, the vibration making her gasp and grind down harder against him as Eugene rubs his thumb over his hole, nudging in alongside his tongue as he works.

Fetch’s other hand smacks out against the wall to steady herself as she starts to rock down harder. Delsin tries to focus and stimulate her clit in a steady rhythm but it’s all he can do to keep his mouth moving when Eugene moves his mouth back up to take his cock halfway down. Eugene still hasn’t quite mastered the art of deep throating, but Delsin doesn’t really need it. He’s getting more than enough pleasure out of the heat of Eugene’s mouth and the soft chanting gasps of his name falling from Fetch’s lips.

 “Fuck!” Fetch practically squeals, knees tightening around Delsin’s head as her hips jerk, riding out her orgasm.

She flops to the side with a groan, her panting just as rough and harsh as Delsin’s. Eugene sits back, letting his fingers toy with the head of Delsin’s dick as he looks over at her.

“Grab the lube for me,” he says.

Fetch makes a disgruntled noise and then goes to dig through her bag before tossing the lube on the bed and leaving for the bathroom to clean up. Delsin watches through wide eyes as Eugene slicks up his fingers and then shifts onto his side so he’s stretched out alongside Delsin, hand moving down below his cock and sliding two fingers in at once. It’s almost too much, but Delsin likes the stretch, the barest hint of pain. His fingers twist in the bed sheets as he digs his heels into the bed and starts to rock down.

Eugene doesn’t have the experience to be able to hit his prostate with any sort of accuracy, but the glancing blows are enough to get Delsin more than halfway there. He drops his hand to his cock and starts to stroke, grateful that Eugene lets him. Eugene presses his lips to the space just below Delsin’s ear as he fucks a third finger in, then slides his mouth up to bite hard at his earlobe and earn himself an embarrassing whimper from Delsin.

“Come on Delsin, give it up for me,” Eugene says, breath hot on Delsin’s skin. “I’ve got you, come on.”

His wrist twists a little as he crooks his fingers, finally getting some direct pressure on Delsin’s prostate. It’s enough to send him over the edge he was balancing on before. He comes hard, back arching as he gasps out Eugene’s name in between a flurry of expletives, chest heaving. Eugene’s fingers slide out of him and he rolls away. Delsin doesn’t have much of a chance to miss him because then Fetch is on top of him, kissing the taste of herself out of his mouth.

When she pulls away, Eugene is back on the edge of the bed looking uncomfortable with his obvious arousal pushing up against his sweats. Fetch pushes Delsin’s hair back a little before pulling back.

“You should totally suck him off,” she says. “You did it so well for me after all.”

“Please,” Delsin says. Words feel difficult to try and find. He’s not floating like last time, but he’s hovering on the edge of that feeling. “Come up here.”

Eugene flushes a deep red. “Like Fetch was?”

That’s not what Delsin was thinking, but now he can’t get the image out of his head of Eugene kneeling over him fucking his cock down Delsin’s throat.

“Yes please, come on,” Delsin says, not with it enough to be embarrassed by the desperation in his voice.

Eugene gets his sweats off and moves up on the bed, looking a bit awkward as he gets his knees tucked up under Delsin’s arms. Delsin’s given Eugene a few blow jobs and he knows he can take his dick easily. This feels different though. This is giving control completely over to Eugene because there’s no way for him to get any leverage or control the rhythm. Eugene pushes his fingers into Delsin’s hair, pulling his head up. The action makes the tip of Eugene’s cock tag his lips. Delsin lets his mouth drop open, tongue flicking out over the top before Eugene pushes forward. He expects Eugene to hesitate a little given his nervousness, but he doesn’t, instead sliding all the way in until he’s touching the back of Delsin’s throat.

He pauses then, feeling the resistance as Delsin tries to relax his throat at this angle. Breathing is difficult like this, but the fullness, the lack of control it conveys, makes Delsin’s cock throb even though he’s nowhere near able to get it up right now. Eugene eases up, letting Delsin catch his breath for a moment before pushing back in and this time, Delsin takes him to his throat. Eugene’s cock isn’t big enough to go very far, but it’s enough to cut off his air and make it so that when he swallows, Eugene groans out his name and shoves his hips a little further. They take their time finding a rhythm. The slowness of it lets Delsin figure out how to breath around Eugene’s thrusts. Even though he’s gentle, it isn’t long until Delsin’s eyes start to tear up.

Fetch is the one to wipe them away as she encourages Eugene to keep going.

“It’s kind of a reflex when you’re choking on someone’s dick,” she says nonchalantly.

Delsin starts to laugh before he chokes and Eugene pulls out of his mouth right after as he doubles over laughing.

“You totally ruined the moment,” Delsin says, flailing his hand out to hit Fetch’s thigh.

She just grins down at him in response. “Made you laugh though, didn’t I?”

Which, yes she did. It’s a nice break from the melancholy that had been overwhelming him. But still, he needs to focus. Delsin reaches out and squeezes Eugene’s knee.

“Get back up here,” he says. “It was starting to feel good.”

Eugene looks surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Delsin says. “I like just focusing on you.”

Eugene moves back to where he was, his hand in Delsin’s hair a welcome sign that things were serious again and Eugene was back in control. He’s more forceful this time around, the humor seeming to have loosened him up enough that he’s comfortable with the noises Delsin makes when his cock cuts off his air. It takes a while, but soon he’s going a little faster, taking what he wants instead of worrying about Delsin. Delsin can feel the tension when he presses his hands to Eugene’s thighs. He’s not in control at all and yet somehow he is because he can feel in Eugene’s muscles how good he feels from Delsin’s mouth.

“Oh fuck…” Eugene’s other hand finally reaches out to grab the headboard, clinging to it as he thrusts into Delsin’s mouth faster.

His cheeks are red, eyes blown wide as he stares down at Delsin like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen. The look makes a warm feeling bloom in Delsin’s chest, alongside a hint of humiliation. That just adds to the pleasure though, knowing he looks good like this and that it makes Eugene look like he can barely keep himself in control. He wants Eugene to look at him like that all the time.

Eugene jerks back, hand falling to his cock and stroking it once before he comes. It takes Delsin by surprise, but it seems to have done the same to Eugene. The feel of Eugene’s come on his face deepens the feeling of shame in him, mostly because of how much he likes it. It’s not really a bad feeling though.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” Eugene says, slicking his fingers in the come and then holding them up to Delsin’s panting mouth.

Delsin knows Eugene doesn’t like the taste of come. Whenever he gives Delsin a blow job he usually ends up spitting it out or pulling off before Delsin gets a chance to do it in his mouth. Delsin wouldn’t say he likes the taste of it, but he certainly doesn’t mind it either. Plus, Eugene’s fingers are sensitive so he decides to take the task of cleaning his fingers seriously, tongue sliding in between each digit as he sucks on them one by one to make sure they’re clean.

“God damn you’re a slut aren’t you, D?” Fetch asks.

The word sends a weird shiver through him, makes his gut heat with arousal even as Eugene makes a noise of protest. When he meets Fetch’s eyes, there’s something dark in them.  He kind of wants her to ride his face again.

"It’s cool,” Delsin says, looking over at Eugene. “I like it.”

“You are way kinkier than you think you are,” Fetch says. “We’re totally only scratching the surface.”

Delsin shrugs. “Probably.” Maybe that should bother him. It doesn’t though.

“Do you feel better though?” Eugene asks.

"Yeah,” Delsin says, smile coming easily to his face. The mess of Cole’s feelings don’t even register at the back of his mind.

“Hopefully this doesn’t keep happening,” Fetch says. “Like of all the people to get, Cole is not the one I’d want.”

“Yeah, hopefully it doesn’t then,” Delsin says. “Can’t help but feel a little bad for him though.”

“What do you mean?” Eugene asks.

Delsin shrugs. “To feel like that, he must’ve lost someone important. I moved on but from everything you’ve told me from his files, I don’t think he got a chance to. Everything happened so fast, you know? Without time to grieve, who knows what I would’ve done?”

“You almost killed Hank,” Eugene says, voice flat.

“Yeah but I had you to stop me, and Betty afterwards,” Delsin says. “If he didn’t…I’m not excusing what he did I just understand maybe how he could get to that point. I guess.”

“Great afterglow talk,” Fetch says dryly.

Delsin winces. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Was just kidding Smokes. Don’t bottle it up,” she says with an enthusiastic slap on his shoulder. “Now, I’m going to bed. You two better go clean up, otherwise I’m kicking you out of bed.”

Delsin lets Eugene pull him out of bed and they stumble to the bathroom together. They made the mistake of throwing their used towels on the floor so instead they wet some tissues and clean themselves up.

“You’re okay with what we did though?” Eugene asks, voice quiet. “Even though it made you cry?”

“Yeah.” Delsin gives an awkward shrug. “I think…I like it when you and Fetch are using me. Not all the time, because I like being in control sometimes too but I don’t know, sometimes that’s exhausting so it’s better when I’m not.”

Eugene shakes his head. “I don’t get it. I never mind that feeling with you because you and Fetch are the people I trust but I don’t like…get something extra out of it.”

“That’s fine,” Delsin says. “We’re not supposed to all like the same things. You’d tell me if you didn’t like something though, right? I know you’re not totally comfortable with what we did, even though you liked it.”

“It wasn’t that,” Eugene says. “I guess I was just more into it than I thought and I didn’t want to lose control and hurt you on accident, if that makes sense?”

Delsin’s not sure how he knows, but there’s definitely something other than that too. He’s too tired and content as it is though to push it out of him right now. Eugene will tell him when he’s ready. If he doesn’t…well he’s sure if push comes to shove, he and Fetch can drag it out of him.

 

-.-

 

The next day is better. There’s a brief moment when they’re driving up through Tennessee that rage fills him all at once, so much he doesn’t know what to do with it. Fetch pulls over so he can stomp his way into the woods. After a few hours of blowing trees apart with concrete, the anger leaves him all at once and he becomes so tired that the moment he stretches out in the back seat, he’s asleep.

They get another hotel in Virginia. After grabbing dinner at a drive thru, Eugene sets up his laptop and spends about an hour with his hand buried in it, sucking in data through the first stable Wi-Fi he’s had access to in days. Fetch leaves to explore the town, likely for some neon sign to drain without attracting attention. There’s been plenty of concrete for Delsin, so he can’t imagine what it’s like to go so long without having an easy way to fill up and get rid of the deep itch for more they must be feeling.

“Not too bad,” Eugene says once he finally disconnects. “We’ve both been through it before.”

“In Curdun Cay?”

He nods. “For those of us who can absorb some sort of matter or energy like this, it was a go to way to punish people – limiting their access to it. Originally, when I was a bit more rebellious to what she wanted me to, she kept me away from draining anything for about a month. By the end I did whatever she asked just to get a little time in front of a screen that had a heavily monitored Ethernet connection.”

“You know every time I think I understand how much of a scumbag Augustine was, I learn more,” Delsin says. “That must’ve sucked.”

“It did, but…” Eugene shrugs. “Don’t have to worry about that now. If I choose not to absorb anything, it’s _my_ choice, not someone else’s. That’s enough.”

Delsin nods. “Got it.” He’s still trying to find the balance of comfort, one that isn’t too pitying but one that conveys that he cares too. “So have you listened to the dead drop we almost died trying to get?”

"Not yet. Figured we’d do it tonight once Fetch gets back,” Eugene says.

“What are we doing tonight?” Fetch asks as she enters the room. She throws the deadbolt shut behind her before hopping up into the bed with them. Her eyes glow faintly with pink light.

“Listening to the last dead drop,” Eugene says.

Eugene shifts onto his stomach with his laptop in front of him, clicking through files and typing in passwords as he digs through his computer. He loads the audio file up and clicks play.

“I don’t have long. The sun is starting to rise so I’ll keep this as short as possible. John White was the Beast and when he re-united with Cole, he gave him the power to see the plague within people, even people who weren’t yet showing symptoms. Cole said that in the two days he had the power, he only saw ten people not infected with the plague. The rate of infection is close to 100% and there’s been no record of anyone surviving once they have it. With this power, Cole can also see potential Conduits, but without their powers being activated, they’re just as susceptible to the plague as anyone else. This has to do with the fact that Conduits get their powers from contact with Ray Field Energy, a blast of it, not just the radiation we’ve all been getting. When humans come into contact with the aftermath of that explosion, the radiation, that’s when they get the plague and it spreads.

“Dr. Wolfe created the Ray Field Inhibitor to help defeat the Beast and hopefully cure the plague. If Conduits gained power from Ray Field Energy and the humans got the plague, then inhibiting that energy and absorbing that radiation should have been the cure. That was the idea anyway. When Cole activated it though, we realized it wasn’t just absorbing the radiation – it was draining Conduits too, and not just of their powers. We could feel ourselves dying.”

Kuo’s voice cuts off and then-

“You okay?” the voice is male, gruff and tired sounding.

“Yeah…yeah. You?”

The man sighs. “I don’t know. Did we make the right choice?”

“What?” Kuo’s voice sounds borderline hysterical. “Now? After everything we just did? _Now_ you’re asking if we made the right choice?”

“I know we had to!” The man sounds angry. “I just wish…”

“Cole, we did what we had to. If we hadn’t done this, if we don’t follow through with it now, millions will die from the plague and the ones who have the chance of surviving will die right along with them. We didn’t even know if the RFI would’ve stopped the plague! And it would’ve killed us,” Kuo says, anger draining out of her voice with every word until she just sounds tired.

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” Cole says. “I just hope it was the right decision, that we actually save people. That it’s worth it.”

“It will be Cole. You’ll see.”

The audio turns to static before ending.

“Okay, that mostly makes sense,” Fetch says. “Self preservation because someone should survive if you think the alternative is everyone dying.”

“This is bullshit,” Delsin says. “Like I get it, they’re bad people because they murdered like millions of people, but there was no one on their side to help! No government authority, no one with a better understanding of the plague or Conduits. They were the only ones with the power to do anything. Any of us would’ve made the same decision.”

Eugene and Fetch both look at him in surprise.

“Didn’t expect you to be the big defender of Cole and Kuo,” Eugene says.

“Well me neither but…” Delsin shakes his head. “Cole isn’t a monster and neither is Kuo. I mean if the circumstances were different in Seattle, maybe the decisions I made, all of us made, would’ve had the same outcome. I don’t know.”

“So we’re saving her right?” Eugene asks.

“You’re god damn right we are.”

 

-.-

 

“Alright so what are the red marks?” Delsin asks.

Eugene has the military’s data up on his computer, showing the direct route they’ll be taking with their high-level escort to get Kuo into the Conduit prison situated beneath the Pentagon.

“Well, that’s the bad news,” Eugene says. “The red dots are military units posted alongside the route.”

“Jesus,” Fetch says, stepping back from the small hotel desk.

Delsin feels the same way. Every street once they enter the city limits is lined with red dots. “Okay, so we have to get them outside of the city. Where’s the best location for that?”

“Well actually, there we have some good news. Most of the surrounding area was actually decimated by the Beast,” Eugene says, scaling the map back. “We’re here, along 95. The army takes 66 all the way in, which as you know once it reaches Tennessee is banned from public travel. It’s guarded by fences but other than that, the only reason humans don’t enter it is because of high radiation levels.”

“Which we know isn’t a problem for us,” Delsin says.

“Exactly,” Eugene says. “But we’ll be off the grid, well Fetch and I will be. Which means we have a day to walk to Route 66 from where we are, Fredericksburg, and devise a good enough plan to take them down when they reach that area.”

“What’s the actual military detail on the convoy like?” Fetch asks.

“Six choppers, twenty total military grade transports all with auto-turrets,” Eugene says. “But remember, this isn’t Augustine’s Conduits we’re dealing with. It’s just the military. They’ve got heavy machinery but if Delsin takes that out, it’s easy to take out the rest.”

“Choppers should be a priority,” Delsin says. “They’re going to have cameras and we’ll want those gone before we do anything else. We want to limit the chance of any of this being tied back to us.”

“Concrete missiles should be enough for that right?”

Delsin nods. “And as for the road, it’s just the one old highway right? If we target an area without exits, I can raise the road up to block them in front and from behind. From there it should be easy.”

“We’ll want to get you some new clothes,” Fetch says. “Something no one can tie back to you, maybe something that makes you look like a DUP person?”

“All black, then a helmet of some kind. Spray paint it yellow,” Delsin says. “Maybe that’ll be enough.”

“I’ll go to the store,” Eugene says. “You two are more noticeable than me and we’re too close to D.C. to risk anyone knowing we’re in the area.”

“Now for the uncomfortable question,” Fetch says. “Delsin…are you sure you can do this? Because if you can’t, we can’t do this. Eugene and I can’t help you.”

Delsin glances between them as he sits down on the edge of the bed. “I’ve got this. Trust me, I got this one.”

And maybe it was hearing Cole’s voice on that recording, hearing his and Kuo’s desperation and hope that they had done the right thing. Or maybe it was the emotions churning inside him still, the ones that weren’t his. It didn’t really matter either way. He was getting Kuo out, no matter what it took.

 

-.-

 

Delsin sits on the ground beneath the highway, eyes closed. They arrived three hours ago and Delsin had spent the entire time beneath the place he planned to erect the barrier, meditating. It was something Betty had taught him to do. It wasn’t actually a tribal thing or anything like that, but she’d done it her whole life and after coming back from Seattle, he’d started to take comfort in practicing.

Plus, it had the added benefit of bringing him more in tune with whatever power he wanted to manipulate. He can feel the rumble of the approaching military trucks in the concrete as they speed on towards their destination, can feel himself flow around the metal that contains his power source and channels it in a direct path.

Concrete isn’t like any of his other powers. Smoke is ephemeral, hot but quick, and unstable. Using it always gave him a rush but with it came a strange anxiety like he was struggling to hold his form. Neon feels heavy. For all its quickness, neon takes the most work to keep steady. Video is the reverse of neon, light and with an illusion that it’s easy to wield but instead each move takes a tremendous amount of effort and any slowing of the speed causes it to sputter right out of existence.

But concrete. Concrete is raw power, the kind you get when you crush everything together and force it into the shape you want. There’s nothing deceptive about concrete. It hits hard and drains his energy fast. Maybe it was because it came from Augustine, but concrete had never been something he felt entirely in control of nor at home in the way he did with the other three powers. Now though, with hours to become familiar with it and concentrate on it, he feels…powerful.

With the feeling of power comes a strange feeling, one he’s not sure if it’s his or Cole’s. There’s a dark edge to it, a desire to make anyone who tried to stop him _hurt._

“Delsin, the first chopper has rounded the bend! Trucks coming in fast!” Eugene shouts in his earpiece.

Delsin takes a deep breath and digs down into himself, chasing after Cole’s emotions. They scare him, that twisted desire to cause pain, but he needs it if he’s going to cause the amount of destruction he needs to. The bridge groans and moans before suddenly cracking down the middle, concrete hauling away from its metal confinements to stretch high into the sky to create a barricade.

He grits his teeth together and the energy roars out of him all at once, up through the new wall and into the air, stretching and sharpening the concrete until it pierces the first chopper. After that, it’s like he isn’t in control at all. The concrete continues on its path, rocketing down and soaking up more concrete to rip up from the road before going airborne again, encompassing the next five choppers entirely in a concrete shell before letting them drop to the ground.

The ground shakes beneath him and it’s enough to draw his attention back. A strangled yell tears out of his throat as he forces himself to reign the power in, curling the spears of concrete around to find the human targets within the metal shells of their trucks. He can hear the shouting as if he’s next to them, can feel their life leave them. It sends a thrill through him, makes him laugh but it doesn’t feel like he’s laughing, it doesn’t feel like him at all. It’s like he’s watching it all happen, watching himself tear apart truck after truck until finally there’s nothing left.

“Delsin! That’s enough! Delsin!”

Eugene’s voice is loud in his ear, pulling him back into himself. He collapses to the side a moment later, gasping for breath. His vision spins and every inch of him screams in pain, throbbing with the beat of his heart as he tries to catch his breath and push himself back up right. Cool hands press against his face and then push him onto his back.

“Delsin,” Eugene says. There’s four of him.

“Eugene...” Delsin clings to his arm. “I don’t…I can feel him again?” His voice cracks at the end, going shrill. “Knock me out.”

“What?”

"Knock me out Eugene!”

Eugene bites his lip and raises his hand and then Delsin’s swallowed up in darkness.

 

-.-

 

Delsin wakes up to the low murmur of the television. He opens his eyes and immediately shuts them again with a groan, the light sending pain ricocheting through his skull.

_"The White House has issued a statement that there are no current suspects in the kidnapping of Lucy Kuo.”_

_“Well of course they have Meredith, it’s not like we’re in the era of Donald Trump anymore where the President just points his finger without basis at any random person he happens to not like any time something goes wrong. The White House doesn’t want to start a witch hunt and frankly, I don’t blame them.”_

_"All they’re doing is solidifying their reputation as a government that isn’t willing to have any transparency.”_

_“So what, they’re supposed to lie for the sake of transparency if they really have no suspects?”_

_"You’ve seen the pictures that got leaked, Jim. They’re all over the Internet. This was clearly someone with Conduit powers and from what we’ve had released so far from the investigation into Augustine Brook is that she and her DUP officers were the only ones with concrete power.”_

_"Suggesting that the branch that set out to quell the bio-terrorist threat is in fact full of bio-terrorists is just outrageous Meredith, even you can see that.”_

_“It’s not nearly as outrageous as you all seem to think it is. The DUP…”_

“Delsin? You awake?”

The TV shuts off and a bag of ice presses to his head. The relief is immediate and he lets out another groan, this one being from satisfaction rather than pain.

“Yeah, I figured.” The voice is definitely Fetch. “We’re back in Seattle by the way, well actually Salmon Bay. Eugene freaked out and called Betty and she insisted we come here so we’re all hiding out in the fish cannery.”

“What the fuck happened?” he manages to get out in a rough voice.

"Well, you destroyed the hell out of the bridge and all the vehicles. Eugene managed to dart in and save Kuo before you got her too,” she says. The bed dips as she sits down above him. Her fingers press into his temples and begin to rub gentle circles as she talks, the motion beating back some more of the pain. “You asked him to knock you out. We didn’t know what was wrong with you.”

“Cole…” he says. “I could feel him. He was…he wanted to hurt all of them, not just kill them.”

“He’s dead, Delsin.”

“I know but it’s like…some part of him was living inside that blast core,” Delsin says. “He’s dead but his shadow wasn’t.”

“And what about now?” Her voice is too calm. If he could, he’d sit up and reassure her that he was fine, make her see it, but the thought of moving makes his stomach turn.

“I don’t feel any of it.” His fingers curled into fists as he dug into himself, searching for the concrete power only to come up empty. Panic seizes him then but a moment later he can sense the smoke, neon, and video, sleeping and dormant like they always are until he absorbs something, but there’s no trace of the concrete. “And I can’t feel Augustine’s power either.”

“What the fuck was wrong with that blast core?” She’s not really asking, so Delsin doesn’t bother answering. “I guess we’ll see if you still got concrete later, but if he’s out of your head I don’t really care if you lost it.”

“Me neither,” Delsin says. “So how’s Kuo?”

“Eugene’s got her pretty bound up,” Fetch says. “Better safe than sorry, you know? We wanted to wait until you were awake to try getting rid of the chip in her head.”

“Is it actually there?” Delsin asks.

"Yeah, Eugene can feel it in her and he’s spent the last few days buried in the DUP server trying to find the program for it just so we don’t get any nasty surprises if we turn it off,” Fetch says.

"Makes sense…did we ever look through that one file we found? And Kuo's stuff?"  
  
"Not yet. We're waiting until later. We've got bigger concerns right now."

"Right, right...I think I’m going to go back to sleep though.”

"Probably for the better. We’ll all be here when you wake up,” she says. “Go to sleep, Smokes.”

 

-.-

 

The next time he wakes up, the pain in his head has receded to a dull ache at the base of his skull and he can open his eyes without making it worse. He rolls off the bed, which is nothing more than a mattress Betty must’ve let them take and lay down on the office floor. He’s going to have to apologize to her. A lot. Getting to his feet takes some effort and the help of the metal desk to his right but once he’s standing the world seems a lot easier to take in, so the next thing he does is reach for the concrete again.

There’s nothing there. He’s almost…relieved. Augustine’s power had helped him save his tribe, but it had also taken his brother and hurt them all in the first place, so it had always felt wrong. He liked having a large arsenal and concrete had been the most powerful without a doubt but…it wasn’t worth it.

“Hey,” Eugene says from the doorway. “You look…less dead.”

Delsin offers a weak smile. “Still feel a little dead. You look…” Eugene’s paler than usual, his face tight with a visible clench in his jaw. “Not great.”

“You scared the shit out of me,” Eugene says. “I shouldn’t have-“

“Jesus, Eugene. I wanted to do this,” Delsin says, taking slow steps to stand in front of him. “It sucks and I feel a bit like someone worked me over with a meat cleaver but I don’t regret doing it, and honestly not having access to concrete anymore is kind of a blessing.”

“Wait, you don’t have concrete anymore?” Eugene asks.

“Yeah, something with the blast core being all fucked up I think,” Delsin says. “But Cole’s feelings are gone too so I’m not really feeling all that bad about losing the power. Just glad we got Kuo before I did.”

Eugene hesitates for a second and then grabs at Delsin, pulling him into a tight hug and burying his face in Delsin’s chest. It takes Delsin by surprise, as does the shake in Eugene’s shoulders as he starts to cry, sucking in harsh breaths as he does so and Delsin…isn’t sure he’s ever seen Eugene cry. Not like this anyways. His memory isn’t so great about what happened but he didn’t think it was that bad.

“Hey, I’m okay,” Delsin says.

“I know…”

"So what’s with the tears?” He rubs at Eugene’s back, not sure what else to do.

“J-Just overwhelmed. I’ve been working for like, three days straight with the DUP servers and hoping you would wake up and not sure if you would again and I…fuck this embarrassing.” Eugene starts to pull away but Delsin wraps his arms around him, pulling him closer.

“No it’s fine, I just wasn’t sure what was going on with you,” Delsin says. “But I’m fine now. We gotta take care of Kuo, alright?”

Eugene nods. “Right.”

“Good.” Delsin pushes him back a little, enough that he can press their lips together. Eugene’s lips taste like salt and they’re wet from his tears but Delsin doesn’t care, he just wants Eugene to know he’s still here, still loves him. “C’mon.”

 

-.-

 

Kuo is in one of the empty storage rooms, bound tight to a chair with a mixture of neon ropes and video shackles that ankle her to the computer Eugene had set up in the corner. Delsin glances at Fetch who shrugs. Kuo’s expression is blank, and if it weren’t for the occasional blink and the icy vapor wafting off her arms in slow waves, he would’ve thought she were some sort of mannequin.

“Kuo?” he asks.

The sound doesn’t even seem to register to her.

“Spooky ain’t it?” Fetch asks.

“Yeah,” Delsin says. “So we doing this?”

Eugene nods as he goes over to the computer. “I found the program. Given that she hasn’t tried to do anything, my guess is the military knows the program exists but don’t know how to use it and frankly, neither do I. I can shut it down though, and after that I’ll deactivate the chip in her brain, just to make sure that if anyone ever gets it back up and running she’ll be okay.”    

“That seems dangerous,” Delsin says.

“It is,” Fetch says. “But we don’t have much of a choice. At this point she’s a ticking time bomb for when the military figures out how to use the program. It’s the only option we got.”

“Alright,” Eugene says. “You two be ready to hold her down. I’ll disable it.”

Eugene crouches down in front of the computer and starts typing away on the computer as Delsin and Fetch take up positions on either side of Kuo’s body. Being close to her, Delsin can feel the cold she radiates. Her veins stick out just a little from her skin, raised an irritated-looking and he remembers all at once about how she had gotten her powers slowly through Bertrand’s experimentation. He wonders how much of her appearance has to do with her powers in comparison to how she got them.

All at once, Kuo goes rigid, tension entering her body as her fingers curl into tight fists. Delsin grabs her shoulder and Fetch does the same, more out of precaution than anything else because really, none of them know what she’s capable of.

“Okay, the program is taken care of. Keep holding her because this part might hurt,” Eugene says as he walks over to them.

He puts a hand on either side of Kuo’s head and closes his eyes. His hands turn to pixels and then disappear into Kuo’s head. The moment they do Kuo’s back arches and she begins to scream, thrashing against the bonds as ice shoots out of her hands, coating the ground around them in an icy layer. Delsin clamps down tighter even as ice begins to crawl up his legs. Fetch curses and when he looks over, the same is happening to her.

“Eugene!” Delsin shouts.

"Hold on, hold on, almost there.”

Eugene’s hands rematerialize outside of Kuo’s head and in one of them is a small metal disc, flicking in and out of existence and a shower of pixels as it falls to the ground when Eugene collapses on the ground. The ice on their legs cracks and then falls apart as Kuo goes limp in the chair, eyes shut. Delsin’s fingers go to her pulse immediately. It’s strong and steady which is a small comfort given the amount of pain she’d seemed to be in.

“Maybe it would’ve been better to just kill her,” Fetch says after several beats of silence pass between them. “Who knows what kind of pain she’s in.”

“No more than you or I were in,” Eugene says as he gets to his feet. “She’ll be okay.”

Delsin meets his eyes and decides not to comment on the uncertainty he sees there. All they can do is hope they didn’t make the wrong choice.

**Author's Note:**

> The next story will be from Fetch's perspective. The one after that will be Eugene again.


End file.
